BostonRugger wrote: ↑Wed Jul 05, 2023 12:35 pmWhat do you look for in resume or interview to determine A background vs B background (can imagine ex: Ivy League vs Opalacka State, but what else)? Can we define Aurelius' Normalized Struggle Metric (ANSM)?
Resumes tell you jack shit about a candidate. Especially a hire out of college. The interview is really the differentiator. Most people will volunteer information with little prodding. Prodding questions:
Where did you grow up?
Did you work in school?
What are your hobbies/interests?
Tell me a situation where you struggled?
How have you displayed leadership? Can you give me an example?
What is a situation where you overcame an obstacle?
And so forth.
I look for specific answers. An interviewee that gives general answers to these questions is a red flag.
If I have two 'equal' candidates on paper
, I'll give the candidate that had a job while going to school or struggled balancing priorities over someone that life's greatest demands on them was going to class. I really like 'older' candidates that had other jobs/careers then went back to engineering school while working (often married with families). I know they will know how to balance priorities and work hard. Someone can 100% present well, be a Student A, and get the offer. It is far more subjective than people want to admit. Meritocracy
I don't know of a test score that will directly correlate to drive, work ethic, and
ability to learn on one's own*. Which are the greatest predictors of success for developing engineers.
That being said I do have some great workers that are Student A types. Most of those are women...my biggest issue is Student A white males. A higher percentage of them are utterly mediocre but feel entitled to be fast tracked to riches. Don't know what to say other than that is my experience. Take it for what it is worth.
*I am finding that college is no longer teaching the underlined. These kids sit through 4 years of powerpoint presentations with everything bullet pointed for them and notes already prepared. They lack the ability to research and come up with answers on their own. It is big problem we don't know how to address.